Jay Baer wrote a provocative post yesterday. He pointed out that fancy Facebook Pages are merely vanity, because your fans interact with you through their own Newsfeeds. You Like a Page, and then never see it again.

I made a similar point previously about Twitter backgrounds, in that the owner of the account is the only one who has to live with the image. Followers see it exactly once (if that much: people can follow you from a host of places without ever going to your page). Have you ever snubbed a potential Follower because their background was plain? I’m far more swayed by other factors when deciding whether to follow back or not.

This is bad news for Facebook and Twitter: they want us to create mountains of content on their sites. Like all social networks, they depend on your generous buy-in. But what use have we for fancy site designs and apps if our peeps are only interested in our updates?

Ages ago, when marketing performing arts, we were taught that it was useless to ask, “How many were at the show last night?” More useful and appropriate is the question, “Who was at the show last night?”

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This blog is dedicated to short form posting. While my main focus explores social media marketing, on the side the blog is also an exercise in brevity. Each post is exactly200 words. Having to wade through over-long entries of any kind online is a barrier to participation. In my opinion, all updates should be delivered in easily consumable bites. This blog attempts to live that decree.
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